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research overview |
<p>I work primarily on the history of medical knowledge and practice in the early
modern period. Many aspects of our life are defined medically and doctors’ expertise
is very prominent today. This was not always the case: in the past medical knowledge
had to compete with other notions and practices of health, for example religious perceptions
of the body and soul. I am interested in the making of, and challenges to, physicians’
authority, and in the social and political uses of their knowledge; my focus is on
seventeenth-century Rome, a thriving courtly and urban society which was permeated
by Catholic culture. Within this project I have also researched hospitals as sites
of medical teaching, the history of post-mortem and anatomical investigations, and
the beginning of legal medicine. Especially on the Continent, physicians and other
medical practitioners often acted as expert witnesses and my aim is to make sense
of when and why medical expertise was sought after in the courtroom: not quite CSI,
but still fascinating!</p><p>The volume I have co-edited, <em>Pathology in Practice:
Diseases and Dissections in Early Modern Europe</em>, (Routledge, 2018), explores
the practice and uses of post-mortems across Europe and how they contributed to medical
debates. My chapter discusses how physicians generalised the knowlegde they
gained from dissections on single and multiple bodies.</p><p>I chair the Open University<a
href="http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history/history-of-medicine.shtml"><u>History of
medicine</u></a>research group and am a member of the<a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/topic/early-modern-britain-and-europe"><u>Early
Modern Britain and Europe</u></a>research group</p><p>I welcome students interested
in any area of the history of medicine (1500-1800), both British and Continental European,
and also in the broader area of early modern natural investigations. I would be happy
to help identify good research topics.</p><h2>Selected publications</h2><h3>Book</h3><p><em>Instruments
in Print. Books from the Whipple Collection</em>, Cambridge, Whipple Museum for the
History of Science, 2000</p><h3>Articles and chapters in books</h3><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/53140/">Seats
and series: dissecting diseases in the seventeenth century.</a><span> In: De
Renzi, Silvia; Bresadola, Marco and Conforti, Maria eds. </span><i>Pathology
in Practice: Diseases and Dissections in Early Modern Europe.</i><span>The History
of Medicine in Context. London: Routledge, pp. 96–115.</span></p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/30425/"><u>‘Tales
from Cardinals’ Deathbeds: Medical Hierarchy, Court Etiquette and Authority
in the Counter Reformation’</u></a>, in E. Andretta and M. Nicoud (eds).<em>Etre
médecinà la cour (Italie, France et Espagne, XIII-XVIII s.)</em>, Florence,
Sismel, 2013, pp. 235-258.</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/29010/"><u>‘A
Career in Manuscripts: Genres and Purposes of a Physician’s Writing in Rome,
1600-1630’</u></a>,<em>Italian Studies</em>, 66 (2011) pp. 234-48</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/27065/"><u>‘The
Risks of Childbirth: Physicians, Finance, and Women’s Deaths in the Law Courts
of Seventeenth-Century Rome’</u></a>,<em>Bulletin of the History of Medicine</em>,
84 (Winter 2010), pp. 549-577.</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/21767/"><u>‘Sapere
anatomico negli ospedali romani: formazione dei chirurghi e pratiche sperimentali
(1620-1720)’</u></a>, in A. Romano (ed.),<em>Rome et la science moderne entre
Renaissance et Lumières</em>, Rome,École Française de Rome, 2008,
pp. 432-472 (with Maria Conforti). </p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/21768/"><u>‘Per
una biografia di Paolo Zacchia: nuovi documenti e ipotesi di ricerca’</u></a>,
in A. Pastore and G. Rossi (eds.),<em>Paolo Zacchia, 1584-1659. Alle origini della
medicina legale</em>, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 2008, pp. 50-73.</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/3538/"><u>‘Medical
competence, anatomy and the polity in seventeenth-century Rome’</u></a>,<em>Renaissance
studies</em>, special issue on‘Spaces, Objects and Identities in Early Modern
Italian Medicine’, edited by David Gentilcore and Sandra Cavallo, 21 (2007),
pp. 551-567<br />free at:<a href="http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/" rel="nofollow"><u>www.blackwell-synergy.com</u></a></p><p><a
href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/9828/"><u>‘Medical Expertise, Bodies, and the Law
in Early Modern Courts’</u></a>, paper commissioned for the section‘Focus’,<em>ISIS</em>,
98 (2007), pp. 315-322<br /><a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/%20" rel="nofollow"><u>www.journals.uchicago.edu/</u></a></p><p><a
href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/3536/"><u>‘Resemblance, Paternity and Imagination
in Early Modern Courts’</u></a>, in Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg
Rheinberger (eds.),<em>Heredity Produced: At the Crossroads of Biology and Politics,
1500-1870</em>, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2007, pp. 61-83</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/9700/"><u>‘Un
linceo alla Sapienza: la natura del fuoco e dei metalli in un’orazione di Johannes
Faber’</u></a>, in Andrea Battistini, Gilberto De Angelis, Giuseppe Olmi, (eds.),<em>All’origine
della scienza moderna: Federico Cesi e l’Accademia dei Lincei</em>, Bologna,
Il Mulino, 2007, pp. 271-316</p><p>‘The Sick and Their Healers’;‘Policies
of Health: Diseases, Poverty and Hospitals’;‘Old and New Models of the
Body’;‘Women and Medicine’, in Peter Elmer (ed.),<em>The Healing
Arts. Health, Disease and Society in Europe 1500-1800</em>, Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 2004</p><p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/3529/"><u>‘Witnesses
of the body. Medico-legal cases in seventeenth-century Rome’</u></a>,<em>Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science</em>, 33A (2002), pp. 219-242</p><h3>Recent Seminar
and Conference Papers</h3><p>19 February 2018, Institute of Historical Research,
London,'What does it smell of': identifying drugs and explaining scents in
seventeenth-century Rome</p><p>20 April 2016, Department of History and Philosophy
of Science, Cambridge,'Art, practice and knowledge: Reassessing early modern medicine’,
job talk </p><p>18 October 2014, Institute of Historical Research, London,'The
traces of poison: social relations and knowledge in seventeenth-century Rome’,
(with Tessa Storey)</p><p>13 October 2013, University of California, Rome,‘Early
Modern Rome 2, 1341-1667’:‘Poison in Rome: Practices and Knowledge in
the Early Seventeenth Century’ (with Tessa Storey)</p><p>5 March 2013, History
of Pre-Modern Medicine Seminar Series, Wellcome Library, London:‘Hippocrates
on the Tiber: Airs and Diseases in the Making of Baroque Rome’.</p><p>23 November
2012, Institut d’Histoire de la Médecine et de la Santè, University
of Geneva, Workshop on<em>Questions pathologiques. Cliniques et autopsies avant Morgagni</em>:‘Autopsie
e pluralita’ del patologico nel lungo Seicento: 1600-1720’.</p><p>4 July
2012, The OU History of Medicine Workshop<em>Patients’ control or practitioners’
authority? Revisiting early modern medical encounters</em>:‘The politics of
the sickroom in seventeenth-century Rome: authority, hierarchy, etiquette’.</p><p>15
March 2012, University of Bologna, International Conference<em>Anatome: sezione, scomposizione,
raffigurazione del corpo fra Medioevo e Età moderna</em>:‘Malattie e
dissezioni in ospedale nel lungo‘600: il caso romano in prospettiva comparata’.</p><p>29
June 2011, Anglo-American Conference of Historians, London,‘Eggs and fish make
him sick: negotiating fasting in Counter-Reformation Rome’.</p> |